The ExPeRT Lab

ExPeRT’s high-pressure, high-temperature lab enables exploration of chemical rock reactions, mineral stability, melt generation up to ~400 km deep and over 2000 degrees C.

Planetary Science

ExPeRT members recreate conditions of the birth of the solar system explore rocky planetary body formation, impacts, and evolution to modern processes.

Volcanism

ExPeRT explores modern processes, like carbon and sulfur cycles and melt generation that produce crust and gases entering the atmosphere via volcanoes, like Sakurajima.

Early Earth and Deep Time

ExPeRT members explore the chemical processes in early Earth that form interior layers and their interactions throughout geologic time.

Experiments

ExPeRT members use microscopic analytical tools to observe the geochemistry of melts and minerals after experimentation which can be extrapolated to natural processes.

ExPeRT: Experimental Petrology Rice Team

Under the direction of principal investigator Rajdeep Dasgupta at Rice University's Department of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences, we investigate the formation and evolution of Earth and other rocky planetary bodies and how the interior processes influence the surface chemistry and habitability. The primary approach of our research is laboratory experiments and geochemical analyses but we also use thermodynamic and other modeling approach.

Recent Publications

Featured

Sun, C.^ & Dasgupta, R. (2023). Carbon budget of the Earth’s deep mantle constrained by petrogenesis of silica-poor ocean island basalts. Earth and Planetary Science Letters 611:118135. doi:10.1016/j.epsl.2023.118135

Li, Y., Wiedenbeck, M., Monteleone, B., Dasgupta, R., Costin, G., Gao, Z. & Lu, W. (2023). Nitrogen and carbon fractionation in planetary magma oceans and origin of the superchondritic C/N ratio in the bulk silicate Earth. Earth and Planetary Science Letters 605:118032. doi:10.1016/j.epsl.2023.118032

Latest News

January 11, 2021

Former ExPeRT post-doctoral researcher Dr. Chenguang Sun will receive this year’s MSA award from the Mineralogical Society of America. The MSA Award is intended to recognize outstanding published contributions to the science of mineralogy by relatively young individuals or individuals near the beginning of their professional careers. Dr. Sun will be recognized for his work on the interpretation of trace elements in minerals and rocks and interactions between carbonatite and peridotite and genesis of kimberlitic magmas. Congratulations Chen!! Read Rice University’s news release here.